


Seven - Coal Hill School

by GrumpyJenn



Series: River and the Doctors [5]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Daleks - Freeform, F/M, Revelation of the Daleks, episode s07e05 Angels Take Manhattan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-26
Updated: 2012-10-26
Packaged: 2017-11-17 01:43:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/546247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpyJenn/pseuds/GrumpyJenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The Seventh Doctor stories may well be the ones I know the least.</p></blockquote>





	Seven - Coal Hill School

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amie33](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amie33/gifts).



River was avoiding him again, the Doctor thought. Oh, she was _there_ , but she didn’t talk with him. Keeping all her burdens to herself, as though she didn’t trust him to shoulder some of them. He hated when she did that.

And he couldn’t even talk to Sexy about it, because she was preoccupied with something. How a being that existed in all times at once could be preoccupied he didn’t know. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

River had been alright - as alright as she ever was since Manhattan, which was _nearly_ alright - and then she went to meet the seventh him, and when she came back, well... she wasn’t alright anymore. There was something haunted behind River’s eyes again, that impossible sadness and pain, and she distracted him whenever he tried to figure out what was wrong.

All he could do was keep an eye on her. He sighed as he did just that; sometimes it seemed that he had spent years - _decades_ \- watching his friends for signs of meltdown. And River was much more than a friend to him.

Amy had been especially in need of watching - which may be why River was - and so had... _oh_... oh _Ace_ , and which adventure with her had River participated in? “Sexy?” _(vague images of white Daleks with gold trim)_. “Oh. Oh dear. Any ideas?” _(a sort of mental shrug)_. “Right then,” the Doctor said, and squared his shoulders. He didn’t want to do this; She would be hurt, and he hated hurting her.

It was time to talk to his wife.

“Hi honey, I’m home,” the Doctor said, leaning casually against the door frame of the gymnasium the TARDIS had made for her. Normally River would have smiled at him no matter what she was doing, or thrown him a _And what sort of time do you call this?_ But she didn’t. She just continued shooting virtual Daleks in the eyestalks, her mouth set in a grim line, and he noted that they were the white-and-gold ones.

Bloody hell.

“Melody Malone,” he shouted, and River was shocked into freezing in place. A Dalek scored a ‘kill’ on her and the simulation ended.

And River Song just stood there staring at him, _that_ expression on her face, the one from Stormcage when she had kissed him and he had run away. The blank half-smirk that spoke of so much _hurt_ that she had turned inward so she could cope. Keeping that vulnerable side well-hidden. “How... how _could_ you?” Her voice was a whisper. “Even you, Doctor, how...?”

He walked to her and took her hand, the one he had healed, and as she stood there watching him, he brought it to his lips as he had then. “I don’t want Melody Malone,” he murmured against her knuckles. “I want River Song, Melody _Pond_. The woman who married me.” He paused, and tried to let her see in his eyes how very much in earnest he was. “ _Please_ , River. Let me help.”

Now she would either slap him or soften, he thought, and he breathed a sigh of relief as she chose the latter. River gently withdrew her hand from his and used it to pull him to her, arms wrapping around his waist, curly head nestling against his neck. “I’m sorry, my love,” she whispered. “I’m fine, I think I’m fine. I miss them, but... I’m fine. And then...”

“And then you meet my old friend Ace, who reminds you of _you_ , of you as Mels, that tough and _fierce_ little girl with the traumatic past, yeah?” She nodded, curls tickling his nose, and he smiled sadly into her hair. “And you remember how Amy and Rory looked after you always, even when you were all children and they didn’t _know_ , and it hurts you. That’s what I want to help with, my River. Would you like to hear about her - about Ace? Would it help you if you knew her better?” She nodded again and he sat them both down on a pile of gym mats and held her. “Her name was Dorothy Gale McShane,” he said, “but to me she was Ace...”

Hours later the Doctor carried his sleeping wife to their room and tucked her gently into bed. Poor River, always so hard on her to let go and let someone else take some of the burden. He wished he could keep her here with him always, but...

_(Not one line)_

_Right_ , he thought bitterly. _Not one line._

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The Seventh Doctor stories may well be the ones I know the least.


End file.
